Thursday, October 19, 2006

The O Runs Letters on Wayne Scott's Ethics Problems

Last week The Oregonian ran a story on the front page of the Metro section under the headline, "Scott's nonreporting of trip a nonissue in his hometown." Turns out that's not really the case after all.

Over the last two days, The O has run three letters from House District 39 voters who find the ethics problems of Republican House Majority Leader Wayne Scott to be a significant issue. Today's letters even garner a large headline on the opinion section: "Constituents question Scott."

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

I read with much interest the article regarding the "fact" that people who reside in Canby are either not interested or don't care about Rep. Wayne Scott's receiving significant funds from the beer and wine lobby, accepting a free trip to Hawaii from this lobby and not reporting it as required by law ("Scott's nonreporting of trip a nonissue in his hometown," Oct. 13).

Scott is well known and personally liked by many in Canby, but this familiarity should not be confused with acceptance of Scott's disregard of the law and his arrogant disregard of his constituents' expectation of high ethical standards of their elected representatives.

This is Canby, where people work, pay their bills, attend children's athletic events and are involved in civic activities. We play by the rules and expect our elected officials to do the same.

Every day we read in The Oregonian of national political disgraces and influence peddling, but we don't expect to discover such shenanigans going on in our home town. This time, however, it strikes home with Scott betraying the public trust. It's an embarrassment.

NANCY SEBASTIAN, Canby

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Steve Mayes' story, "Scott's nonreporting of trip a nonissue in his hometown" (Oct. 13), fails to accurately communicate the strong concern that many of us have about House Majority Leader Wayne Scott's moral compass. His failure to report his expenses on trips to Hawaii is just one more indicator that he is frequently and blatantly on the edge of ethics in behalf of big money.

He defends predatory lenders and supports the interests of big drug companies. It would be one thing for him to openly oppose reforms in these areas, even though neither would cost the taxpayers anything. But he has gone well beyond that and used his tremendous power as the majority leader of the House to keep bills addressing them from even coming to the floor of the House for a vote, thus effectively killing them, out of public view.

To many of us here in House District 39, a junket at the expense of his big-money friends is small potatoes compared with Scott's ethically questionable use of his power to advance the cause of special interests.

REX HAGANS, Oregon City

Rep. Wayne Scott's illegal nonreporting of favors from lobbyists is an issue to many of his constituents. I don't know how your reporter chose his contacts in Canby to interview, but their opinions are certainly not representative of me and many of my Oregon City neighbors, who probably will never be able to take a luxury trip to Hawaii!

We have been watching Scott's work in the Legislature. He is consistently not concerned with the working people of this district, their children, education and economic well-being. We are glad to have Mike Caudle step up to challenge Scott and bring some fresh air into the Oregon House of Representatives by opening those closed doors that have hidden such corruption for too long.

MARK PRITCHARD, Oregon City
If you want to share your opinion with The Oregonian, perhaps over their lackluster endorsement of Scott in which they write that he "has not consistently put his formidable personal and political skills to constructive use in Salem" but that they hope he will "return to Salem with a new appreciation of legislative ethics and bipartisan leadership" (because we all know you can teach an old dog new tricks...), click here and follow the directions on how to send a letter to the editor.

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